


Answer the Call

by chezchuckles



Series: Army Castle [2]
Category: Castle (TV 2009)
Genre: Army Spy, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:47:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26766760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chezchuckles/pseuds/chezchuckles
Summary: Army Spy finds a way to get in touch. #2 in the Army Spy series
Relationships: Kate Beckett & Richard Castle, Kate Beckett/Richard Castle
Series: Army Castle [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945063
Kudos: 21





	Answer the Call

“Hey, so what the hell was that last month?” her training officer snarled.

Kate Beckett’s head shot up at the tone, but Mike Royce kept his gaze resolutely on the horizon as he drove their squad car.

He’s such a pussy.

She narrowed her eyes at the voice in her head, pissed because it was his. Damn Castle.

True, though. She’d been paying attention the last couple weeks, and Mike Royce had lost his luster. His authority with her. She no longer responded.

Dead, in some ways, and in others, oh, she was so screwed up.

“What was what last month?” she said, keeping her voice flat. She lifted her fingers to her mouth and hooked her elbow on the door, hanging out the window a little. She watched the neighborhood as they drove.

“You know. The fucking jarhead.”

“What jar-” She grunted as it dawned on her, shook her head. “What the fuck does it matter to you?”

“Why the hell you let him stay with you? Doesn’t he have his own damn-”

“He didn’t stay with me,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. All Royce’s authority over her--gone. Fucking gone. She just wanted to get out of this car.

“He was at your damn place every time I showed up.”

“You came over how many times,” she snarked. “Once, you bastard. Don’t even.”

Mike gave a weird hesitation and went on, “He’s a fucking bully. You know his type.”

“Are you worried for me?” she said, injecting as much sarcasm as she could. “Training officer for my fucking personal life?”

And then they both heard what she said and the car turned icy silent.

Fuck. Mike had been at her place how many fucking times while Castle was in town?

“What I do is off-limits,” she muttered. “And anyway, it wasn’t a thing; it’s done. Fun while it lasted.”

Beckett stared until graffitied buildings blurred into urban art, and at least they were finally close to the Twelfth.

Fucking hell. She did not need this today.

\-----

Beckett yanked the rubber band out of her hair as she shoved her way inside her apartment building. She bumped the security door closed with her ass, letting her spine hit the wood, and then she pushed off to head for the row of brass mailboxes in the entry.

Her hair was caught in the damn rubber band. She’d been forced to use actual fucking office supplies, because she hadn’t brought a hair thing from home today. What-ever-the-fuck. She was so damn exhausted right now that she just jerked the rubber band until hair came out with it in a knot.

She dropped the rubber band into the trash chute in the hall and almost bypassed the mail altogether. But she had the idea that she hadn’t checked her box in about two weeks, and if she didn’t soon, the mailman would start cramming those flyers and circulars inside just to spite her, the real mail (like bills) being returned to the post office undeliverable. It had happened more than once.

Damn it.

Beckett fingered her keys until she found the cheap, thin mailbox key and then she jammed it into the wobbly keyhole. The whole bank of boxes moved as she rattled it in the lock, but she finally got the key to turn and the brass door swung open.

A package was stuffed inside.

Kate had to tease out a thick wad of coupons, one sheet at a time, interminable, until she finally had enough space to get the package loose.

A bubble mailer, about half the size of a piece of paper, and the smell of couscous. She slammed the mailbox shut, ignoring the rest of it, and kept the package close to her chest as she headed for the stairs.

She wouldn’t look until she got inside. She couldn’t. It wasn’t--it was maybe a thing. And she didn’t want it to be a thing, but if it wasn’t then she didn’t want to be on display for finding out it wasn’t a thing.

As she thumped up the stairs, the ache in her lower back and hips began to flare up again.

She hadn’t changed in the locker room, so the duty belt and holster were fucking heavy, the bulletproof vest chafing as it sat dully on her shoulders. Some of the guys had gotten back braces to help shift the weight of the duty belt, and she was beginning to think it was a good idea as a preventative measure. The Back Defender, they’d called it, some kind of suspenders, but it wasn’t just middle-aged guys, it was the ones she’d just graduated with.

Fuck, her hips ached so bad. That was the worst part, the duty belt hanging with all that weight, the basketweave doing its best to support the load but it just didn’t-

Beckett paused in the middle of the stairs, astonished by the jangling she could hear all around her.

Her phone was ringing?

But.

Not her phone.

She was standing in the middle of the damn stairs, and what the hell was ringing?

Kate stared at the mailer in her hands, realizing belatedly that it was doing the ringing. Her hands turned without her express command, flipping the package over so she could see the address.

Her name was written in a tall print, somehow rather beautiful in its exoticness. The ‘e’ had a slant to the top half that made it seem definitive and striking.

No return address. Just her name. Par Avion. Some scuff marks at the corners and tape around the edges, a navy ink barcode with the date, a computer generated stamp in the top corner.

She tried to peel back the packing tape but it was impossible. She maneuvered her keys in her cramped hand and started running up the stairs as the package continued to ring--there was a phone inside.

It was disconcertingly exciting to jab the keys into her own door and wrestle with the lock, the stuck place where the door had warped. She finally got the fuck inside her own damn apartment--and the package stopped ringing.

She could hear her own heartbeat instead, the adrenaline rush in her ears like a roar.

Kate put the mailer down on her kitchen counter and studied it a moment, waiting for it to ring again, wondering how many times it had done that before she’d checked the mail. How many days.

She tucked her thumbs into her belt and eyed the package, realized the pose she had adopted and dropped her hands.

Fuck it.

She got scissors out of her junk drawer and attacked the thing.

The second she managed to rip through the last layer of bubble wrap and actually get her fingers around the sleek, gray, heavy plastic, the phone rang again.

And she answered.

\-----

Her throat was raw. “Beckett.” Like her own name was a question to her.

She sounded like she had the first week back at work after being sick, after being with him, that hoarse quality to her voice that she’d told Royce was from the cough. It hadn't been. It had been him, this man, and what he'd done to her. She sounded like that again now, just knowing her answer to this ringing phone would produce him.

And it did.

"Are you wet?" he asked.

She sucked in a breath.

"I want the phone's ringtone to be like the bell for Pavlov's dogs," he went on. "Every time you hear it, you salivate for me. We'll work on it."

"Hello to you too," she husked. But fuck, yes. She was wet.

"You are," he breathed. He sounded both excited and pleasantly surprised. He hadn't thought she'd answer or he hadn't thought she would be wet?

"How long have you been calling?"

"I plead the fifth."

"Because I haven't checked mail in... a while... and the postmark is practically the day you left."

"Um. I--this is less sexy as we go along, Beckett."

"Tell me."

"I've been calling for seventeen days."

She stood very still in the middle of her kitchen, eyes on nothing, and tried to process. But it wouldn't.

"This isn't sexy, Beckett," he muttered. "Go back to your panties. Is your crotch wet? Are you shifting on your feet at the sound of my voice?"

"Getting there," she murmured.

"Where are you?"

She'd expected What are you wearing? and the fact that it hadn't come next made her somehow vulnerable.

"In my damn apartment, Richard. Where are you?"

There was absolute silence and she cursed herself for not thinking.

"Check that," she said. "I don't fucking care. What are you wearing?"

"A black t-shirt and jeans. Beer spilled on me. Sticky."

"Mm. Sticky?"

"Reek of hops."

"Have you shaved in a while?" she murmured.

"Been a few days," he admitted. And then she heard him rasp his chin against the phone, his cheek, something scruffy and loud and it twinged in her belly.

"I like that," she breathed, words unchecked.

"What are you wearing?"

"My uniform."

"That's fucking hot," he growled. "Let me get--somewhere more--hell, I was gonna say safe but I really don't see that coming. But hang on, hang on, let me--ah, fuck, why are you in here, you lousy fucking-"

She was laughing, a kind of helpless broken laughter she didn't understand, but as he cursed the living daylights out of someone on the other end, she moved rather unconsciously for her bedroom.

"Shite, you wanker. What the ever loving bloody-"

Beckett pressed her lips together and sank down on the end of her mattress, thought better of it and rose again to shut her door. Somewhere safe was right. Somewhere hidden. Even in her own apartment.

"Okay, okay," he was breathing, the accent still there, that emerald lilt, but even as he spoke, it began to unwind from his voice. "I'm here. I'm hiding from the whole rubbish lot of 'em."

Certain words weren't his, others were, and the accent was in and out.

"You're hiding?" she said. "Me too."

"You're--I thought you were at home."

"In my room. Front door locked. Bedroom door closed. Sitting--on my bed."

"Yeah," he rasped, that mindless agreement he had when she had him. "Yeah, I'm--shut door, locked. Still it's not--not safe exactly. I shouldn't really be--fuck, they could catch me with my pants literally down."

"Makes it--exciting?"

"Yeah." His voice cracked; she swore she heard a whine in his throat, and now her bullet proof vest was so fucking heavy. She should have changed at the precinct. So stupid to go home like this.

"You thinking about me?"

"Endlessly."

She sucked in a breath but her vest was so restrictive. She fumbled for her shirt and started popping buttons, switched to her duty belt to get that off first-

"Are you taking your clothes off?" he husked.

"Trying to get--get it off."

"What are you doing?"

"My shirt is--my belt. It's damn heavy, hold on. I need two hands."

He was cursing at her even as she dropped the phone to the mattress and hooked her fingers around the buckle. She had to fumble with it a moment, trying to unbuckle even as her body was combusting, blood rushing. She had to be careful, fuck, her weapon, and her police training was so drilled into her than she carefully put her gun away first, tucking it into the box on her dresser, the clip ejected.

Her mother’s ring, back inside the box. A pause, a dissociative dizziness.

And then she hustled back to the phone and scooped it up. "Here. I'm here."

"Fucking hell, Beckett, just listening to noises on your end is making me crazy."

"Yeah? The duty belt is--heavy. You heard it drop?"

"Yeah, and--I don't know. Imagination probably running away with me."

"Mmm?"

"You in pants and shirt still or-?"

"Pants, shirt, shoes. Let me at least get these damn boots off." She pressed the phone to her shoulder with her ear, sank down to the bed again. She had to unlace the whole boot just to get it off, breathing hard into the phone.

"I am having so many dirty thoughts right now," he growled.

"Care to share with the class?"

"You make this sound when you're caught up, when I start on you, my fingers sliding through your cunt. The best sound. Like right now."

"Just--breathless," she muttered. Dropped one boot. Worked on the next.

"Why you breathless, baby?"

"For--this. Because you--you sent me a phone so we could do this."

"I fucking told you I wanted you to talk me into it over the phone. Did you think I was joking?"

"No, I just... you sent me a whole fucking phone. I'm--um--worked up, you asshole."

He laughed, but it was dark and dangerous and thrilling, not at all the easy thing she'd come to hear in her bed. This man was a spy. A fucking covert operative working undercover in another country while she dumped her boot onto the floor and scrambled back to her headboard.

"You gonna tell me what to do here, Richard, or just laugh like the devil in my ear?"

"You want me to tell you what to do? Touch yourself. Right now, through your clothes. Press the seam of your pants into your crotch and-"

She groaned, fingers already there, pressing. Her hips seemed to jerk up more at the sound of his voice rather than just the sensation. The anticipation of sensation.

"Oh, yeah, baby, that's it. I want you to take your shirt off, leave the bra on."

"But I like--I twist my nipples when I-"

"Not tonight. Leave them constrained. Rub them through the material. Is it lace? Or cotton. Or just--whatever it is, it's black."

"Black," she confirmed, struggling out of the shirt already. Her breasts were aching. "And you?"

"I love black."

She choked on a laugh, tilting her head back against the headboard, letting her body slump. "What are you doing right now, Rick? Touching yourself as you talk to me?"

"Yeah." A moment of hard breathing. "My hand. I'm doing what I tell you to do, to myself, my hand is--I'm rubbing my cock through my pants."

"Fingers or-"

"Heel of my hand. Kneading. The pressure is... gotta do it hard."

She would remember that. "Do you ache?"

"Yeah, love. Feels like all the time. Are you lying down in bed?"

"Mm, almost. On pillows, reclining."

"Use the heel of your hand at your crotch, at your clit where it's sharp.”

"Shit," she whispered.

"Fuck," he groaned back. "I really want to-"

She was breathing hard, fingers grinding the seam of her fly into the hard little nub of her clit, too much, too rough, jabs of pleasure like pain. "You want to what?"

"I want to fuck you," he growled. "Just. Shit. Lay on top of you and grind this fucking erection against you until I get some damn relief."

"Painful?"

"Just thinking about you. No one has ever done that to me before. Shit. Beckett, get your pants off."

She scrambled to obey, phone pressed to her ear by her shoulder, both hands working at her button and zipper, kicking the material off her legs with a desperation she didn't even care to consider. She yanked the bed covers down, reasons she couldn't understand, to hide, to do this in secret, touch herself with his voice on the phone. Covertly.

"Are your damn pants off?"

"Off, they're off. Panties are pink." She mumbled the last part. Fucking embarrassed. Why the hell had she told him that? She should have said black.

"Pink?" he whispered. "Oh, Kate. I--shit, baby. That's so hot."

"Yeah?"

"Pink panties. Oh, hell. Fuck, I'm gonna come in my pants if I don't get this under control. Are you touching yourself?"

"No, I'm--waiting for you to say."

"Slip your fingers under those pink panties. Cotton?"

"Yeah, they're-" She moaned on the rest of it, fingers sliding into her heat, pressing herself open to it. Her arousal slicked around her hand, wet on her thighs and ass, and she couldn't stop the way her hips bumped up. Heat was building under the covers, her thighs sweating behind her knees, her breasts heavy and damp.

"Touch yourself, love. Let me hear you."

She moved the phone down her body with one hand, squelched her fingers in her desperate juices with the other, back and forth, that wet-cunt sound. She was breathing so hard, her wrist was aching, she wanted his voice.

Beckett brought the phone back up to her ear, sucking in a breath. "Rick?"

He was growling her name.

"Talk to me," she panted. "I'm almost-"

"Did you put the fucking phone down at your cunt? Beckett. Kate. Did you-"

"You said to."

"Oh, fuck me. Fuck. I said I wanted to hear you moan, I never thought--fucking hell, Kate, that's the most fucking--shit." And now he was grunts and hard breathing and she knew he was close, he was losing it, he couldn't get a grip on himself and stop it at all.

She stroked fast in her own cunt, shallow fingers, pressing the base against her clit so that her palm ground against that best spot, listening to him, hearing him, imagining him as he'd been in the chair in her living room, unmade by her touch.

"Fuck, you like it rough; I know you. You like to torture yourself with your hand, your eyes squeezed tight, the whole thing building so damn-"

He shouted on the other end and she knew he was coming, could feel him, feel it coming, and her own orgasm bubbled up, rising, stretching, but it never broke the surface.

She was whining now, hips jerking into her hand; she needed it but it wouldn't come for her. She needed something to-

"Oh, fuck, Kate. Kate.” A ragged breath in, out again. “Love, you're amazing. I can hear how much you want me, how much this does it for you, and I wish I could watch you, stand in the room with you and watch your thighs fall open and your fingers work-"

She cried out and came with a jerk, her orgasm dirty and jagged and tight, his voice on the other end of the phone.

\-----

They were both breathing fast, out of sync.

She kept her hand in her panties and rested her fingers against her wet folds and tried not to move, tried to come back down from the dizzy spin of her release.

“Baby?”

“Here,” she croaked.

“That wasn’t right,” he sighed.

She froze.

“I wanted to do--all this--I had this plan. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks now, and every time I called, every time, I had it so perfect, what I’d say to you, how I’d get you off first and listen to you-”

“Doesn’t even fucking matter,” she muttered, breathing again. Deeper breaths, trying to blink through the haze still weighing her down. “That was just fine.”

“Obviously I was shooting for more than just fine here.”

She grunted, shutting down a laugh, rolled onto her side to close her legs and her eyes as well. “Mm, baby, you made me come. Never happened before. So you’re good. We’re good.”

“You’ve never come from phone sex before?”

“Nope.” Her mouth was loose with a warm heaviness that stole up her body. A faint buzz hummed in her head.

“Mm, I am good. Bet I can make you come again, and this time we go according to plan.”

“Plans are boring.”

“Not this time. I had a whole seduction mapped out, Beckett. What I’d do to you, how I’d do it.”

“We did pretty damn good.” She yawned through her last word and heard him growling at her. “Not asleep, promise. Just resting.”

“Beckett, I have been eagerly anticipating this phone call for weeks now. You better not fucking fall asleep.”

“You start talking, baby, and I’ll be right with you.” She smiled to herself, remembering how he’d curl up at her back and fit himself at her ass, nudging her, prodding her, sliding her thigh back over his and then pushing inside her.

“Kate,” he called softly. “Kate, love, are you curled up on your side?”

“Mm-hm.”

“When I kiss the back of your shoulder blade, can you feel my breath on your skin?”

She shivered, curled her arm into her chest; she could smell herself on her fingers. “You kiss my shoulder and push your chin in against my neck so that the first scrape of your cheek, the stubble, makes my nipples hard.”

A fast breath on the other end and then he seemed to rally. “I always slide my hand to your hip and stroke the soft skin. Come up your ribs to cup your breast and thumb that hard nipple. That ripe weight in my palm. Warm.”

“And then you fit your whole body against mine. Your thighs bracing the backs of my legs, your chest to my spine. All that heat.”

“The moment my cock is pressed between us, fuck, Kate. I need you.”

She felt him there like a phantom erection at her ass, a sensation of skin close to her skin.

“Baby, where are your fingers right now?”

She tucked the phone against the pillow and wormed her arm out from under her, brought her hand up to cover her breast. “Where your hand always is.”

“Are you teasing yourself or are already twisting your nipples?”

“Teasing,” she whispered, swirling the tips of her nails against the pebbled skin.

“Oh? Teasing,” he murmured, sounding a little breathless. “Touching your breast is amazing, playing with your nipple. Because you press back against me, your hips bump up with every little jerk of pleasure. The perfect heat of your ass squirming in my lap. Sometimes I like to spank you.”

“Fuck,” she gasped.

“Twist your nipples-”

She moaned, the fierceness crackling through her breast and tugging on her core. She needed--needed more--bigger--the thickness of his cock at her ass.

“Are you as desperate for me as I am for you?”

“Fuck, don’t know. Are you touching yourself?”

“I’m teasing my cock the way you said you’re teasing your breasts.”

“Fondle your balls,” she panted, massaging her breast now. She kneaded the flesh and worked her way to the peak, nipple aching with her violence. “Roll them around in your sac so that it hurts.”

“God damn it,” he hissed. “Beckett. Fuck.”

“I want you so bad,” she moaned.

“Push your fingers inside you.”

She growled and finally shoved her free hand back into her panties, crying out at the first rough touch, the flick of her nail against her swollen clit.

“How--long?” he gritted out.

“Soon,” she muttered, eyes slamming shut, hips jumping into her touch.

“Chafe your nipples, twist them hard-”

She growled at him, breath whistling through her nose. He was loud, cursing at her as he tried to describe it: my hand squeezes too rough, my balls contract, the base of my spine is spiraling tighter-

She burst into orgasm, orange-white sparks in the darkness behind her lids, her cry choked off by the insistent press of her fingers against her clit.

She wanted--very suddenly, very intensely--to have his body between her thighs and his cock pressing her open.

“Kate,” he shouted, and the sound of his climax was brutal over the phone.

But he wasn’t here. He was there.

She ended the call.

\-----

\-----

Kate Beckett was in the zone.

Heart rate jacked up, sweat pouring down her back and in her eyes, the rhythm of her own feet on the treadmill both comforting and encouraging. She slammed a hand to the console and upped the incline again, sucking in a deeper breath as she worked harder, worked it out. All of it.

She stared into the unwavering distance, eyes on the far wall, and ignored the world.

Ear buds were sweat-drenched but through the static she heard The White Stripes thudding bass, the guitar work screaming. Matched her mood, edgy vibes coming up off her skin like steam.

She'd been at the gym for two hours, some machine work before letting the treadmill numb her thigh muscles and feet. She was almost done with the cardio-climb program, about to head for the wrestling room and the punching bag.

She usually started there. Good indication of the kind of week she was having, that she hadn't needed it first. Of course, she still heard his voice in her ear touch yourself for me but that was okay, that was good actually, gave her a buzz and little angry kick to her ass.

That damn phone call. She still couldn't quite believe he had fucking mailed her a phone just so he could call her. Okay, she could believe it, but it was still ludicrous. And rather stalkerish. That was his m.o., now that she was thinking about it.

She wasn't though. She was running for her life on the treadmill.

The console beeped in warning, and she glanced down, caught sight of the end of the trail coming up. Suddenly the incline dropped off and she was supposed to be in cool down-

But a shadow moved behind her.

She gripped the bars of the treadmill, turning to look, to maybe jump off, but two arms came to land behind hers, trapping her.

Male. Aroused. Close. She jerked-

"Hey, sweetheart," he breathed against her neck. Licked the sweat at her skin.

"Castle," she gasped. A tremor ran through her at the warm wet of his tongue. She didn’t break her stride but, unfortunately, the treadmill did for her, slowing so that she nearly ran off the front. "Castle. What the fucking hell."

"I found you. Finally."

She shuddered hard, bright arousal piercing through her body like a muscle cramp.

"You done yet, baby, because I want to get on."

"You want..." She had to struggle to keep with it, turning her head to look at him as the treadmill came to a stop. "You're here to run?"

"No," he rumbled. "I'm here for you."

I want to get on. Oh, fuck. "You're supposed to be in-"

"I got eight hours, Beckett. Don't waste them by talking."

\-----

"Eight hours," he reminded her.

He had her backed against the shower divider. In the women's locker room. This was so so so not okay. His hands held her hips in place, her naked hips, water sluicing down his back as he knelt before her.

"Rick," she moaned, desperately trying to think, think. Just think through this.

"I need to be fucking you every second of it," he growled. His mouth between her legs. His tongue. The hum of his urgent and dark desire. His teeth caught her and her spine bowed forward.

At least this gym had shower curtains. At least the curtain was pulled closed. At least-

"Oh fuck," she moaned, hips jumping against his mouth. "Stop, stop. Just get the fuck up here, Richard."

He rose, damn face so brightly triumphant at her capitulation. He pushed and crowded against her, full frontal nakedness, water chafing. Her skin was on fire, her heart beat erratic. She was widening her stance and he was spreading her thighs.

He thrust inside her and she screamed; his hand flashed up and choked it off, slapping over her mouth. She bit the meat of his palm and rocked into the piercing tightness of his cock inside her.

Hurt, hurt, so good.

He thrust, and it was all terrible friction, her arousal not enough to accommodate how wide and thick and more he was. How could she have forgotten this? He didn’t hesitate, despite not prepping her much beyond his mouth sucking her wet, and now she had to suffer through the excruciating force of his cock driving deeper.

Suffer through so fucking good. She was going to come. Right now. She couldn't hold on.

He cursed as she began, that sharp contraction of her cunt around him. He growled too soon as spilled hotly inside her, his own climax chasing hers, short and poignant.

The water pounded down around them, running cold, the timer about to click off and leave them wet, steaming, naked together.

She was trembling. She realized she had one leg twined around his hip. She was barely on the toes of her other foot. He was breathing great gulps at her and stiffening up again even as she clutched at him.

The shower cut off. She could hear them, how they gasped for breath, blood rushing in her ears. She realized she was still whimpering but she could do nothing to make it stop.

The door to the shower rooms clicked and swung open, the sound of female voices carrying easily to them.

Beckett froze.

Water dripped. Laughter. Agent Castle's wide, naked body pressed against hers. The women drew closer. She dropped a foot slowly to the tile, gripping the back of his neck for balance.

His cock came to fierce and demanding attention inside her. She strangled a sound and he slapped his hand over her mouth again.

"Is someone hurt?"

"I heard that too. Sounds like someone getting murdered. Oh my God, if someone is getting murdered in there, I am going to scream."

She sucked in a breath through her nose that was louder than it should have been and then, fucking hell, the shower curtain was jerked aside.

\-----

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Beckett snarled, one step forward.

Of course, she ran right into Castle, who’d been trying to hunch over her, protecting her like she at all needed fucking protecting.

The nosy bitch backed up into her friend. “This is--this is--the women’s-”

“Get the fuck out of my shower stall,” Beckett said. She shifted to the side and felt Castle’s cock. She didn’t let it show on her face, but Rick’s knees dipped.

“You can’t do that in here,” the woman sniffed, but she was jerking her friend away, full retreat as Beckett glared her down. They were already halfway out of the shower room.

The door banged shut and Castle gripped her hips with a moan. “Fuck me, Kate Beckett.”

“I already did, you asshole, and now this.” She shoved on him, but he didn’t budge. “We have to fucking go. She’s going straight to management. Fuck.”

“This is a shitty gym anyway,” he murmured. “Only attractive feature is you.”

“Richard,” she snapped. He lifted his head and finally looked at her, eyes meeting, and some of that fuck-haze burned out of him.

“Fuck. I forget you have a life here. I’m burning your bridges, aren’t I? No, okay, it’s okay. I can get us out the way I got in.”

He moved to the wall and twisted the dial, cutting the water back on. She gave him a scathing look, but he grabbed her by the hips and bodily moved her into the cold spray, following after her.

She yelped as the water hit her. “What are you-”

He cupped her between her legs before she could finish and she came up on her toes with a grunt. He scooped his fingers through her folds, brought his hand up to the water to let their arousal wash down the drain.

Fucking hell.

He did it twice more before he was satisfied--and she fucking let him, what the fuck was wrong with her?--and then he pushed her towards the still-open shower curtain.

“Go. I gotta tame the beast real fast--take one second. Grab our clothes.”

“You get your fucking ass over here,” she growled. She came back to him, grabbed him by his half-hard cock. He gritted his teeth and shot her a look, but she moved around behind him and put her hips against the curve of his ass.

“Beckett, what-”

She wrapped both arms around him now, cupped his balls. She worked a brisk, bruising pace with one hand, fondled his balls with the other, knowing it wouldn’t take-

He grunted, his hips jerked, and he came with a splash against the wall. A teeth-grinding curse as his cock sank slowly in her hands, the shower washing it all down the drain. She released him, let him stand there and take the cold water full in the face.

“Now I’ll get our clothes,” she told him. “You damn stupid man.”

\-----

“What the hell?”

“Let me boost you up,” he said, gesturing.

“Up there.”

“It’s how I got in,” he said. “Grab the pipe attached to the sprinkler system.” He squatted down and cupped his hands together, waiting on her.

Beckett huffed but lifted her foot and planted it in his hands, arms up even as he vaulted her towards the open ceiling panel. She caught the pipe and used her momentum to swing herself up, kicking her feet towards the ceiling crossbar.

She caught hold, took a fast breath, and then contracted her abs to pull herself inside the ceiling. Shit that was so much harder than it’d looked. She found a place to balance and glanced back down at Agent Castle.

“How exactly are you getting up here?” she snarked.

She shouldn’t have asked. He was disappearing from her view and then all of the sudden, Castle raced towards her, took a running leap, and jumped. His hands caught the crossbeams that held up the ceiling panels and he swung once, like a gymnast, and then back and inside, landing perfectly beside her.

She gaped at him.

He was already replacing the panel and moving like a crab towards a line of duct work. “This way, love. Most support where the pipes are.”

She blinked after him, not sure her heart was still beating.

He didn’t even turn back to make sure she was following; he just scuttled forward, disappearing into the darkness.

She caught a breath and crawled after him, not entirely certain all this was necessary. Let the gym’s manager kick her out; there were hundreds of gyms and she could always go to the Twelfth’s basement workout room.

But sneaking out was a whole lot more fun.

\-----

Beckett jumped onto the subway car, Castle coming in right behind her. He had shied away from the stairs leading underground when she’d led him here, but all she’d needed to do to convince him was squeeze his crotch.

He’d hastened down the stairs first, pulling her after him despite the cctv. Now she worked her way into the center of the crowded car, feeling Castle moving behind her, somehow stealthy and unobtrusive even here.

She turned around, leaning against a pole at her back and gave him a scowl.

“I will never get my gym deposit back,” she muttered. “Those two will pick me out of the membership roster. I won’t be allowed back.”

The subway car took a turn she wasn’t expecting--this wasn’t her usual line--and she plowed into him, a faceful of his dark t-shirt, the smell of sweat and sex and gym on his skin.

He wrapped his arm around her neck and kept her face buried in his armpit. She struggled for only a second, because something in her said she ought to, and then she sank into him.

Eight hours. No, only seven now. What the fuck was the point of resisting when she just wanted his cock inside her, his mouth on her, his body against hers?

“Can I touch you like this?” he husked.

She nodded against him before her stupid mouth could say no. When his hand moved, she swatted him away, straightened up, but he cupped her ass and nudged his crotch against hers before she could resist.

“Just a little,” he murmured.

She glared at him. “I am a cop. And transit police come around-”

“No, they don’t. And no surveillance cameras inside the cars,” he said, matter of fact. “Plus, I can do this.” He stepped into her, backing her up against the pole until his hips pressed flat to hers, pelvis to pelvis. He wrapped his arms around her to hold onto the metal bar, one above her head, one at the curve where her waist gave him room.

“You can’t do this,” she said, staying calm.

Outwardly. Inwardly she was going off like bottle rockets, that high-pitched screech of fireworks heading up into the dark sky.

“We have-” He stopped and turned his wrist, glanced at his watch. “Seven hours and eight minutes.”

“Your fault,” she said coldly. “You wouldn’t let me just take a fucking shower and get you back home.”

“Correction. I did let you take a fucking shower. That is the exact kind of shower you had.”

He was smirking. The bastard. She slid her knee up fast and got him in the balls before he could see it coming.

Rick grunted and leaned hard against her, someone behind her said, damn girl. She turned her head and saw they’d acquired something of an audience, two black girls who apparently knew something about a woman’s power--or something about pushy and overbearing assholes.

But Castle was still leaning hard against her and he buried his face in her neck, his forehead to her skin, breathing lightly.

He was playing it up. He wasn’t really that hurt. Right? He-

Oh. They’d attracted attention. He was a fucking spy, and she’d drawn attention to them.

Beckett cupped the back of his neck, squeezing, and turned her mouth into his ear, pretended to look grim. “I’m sorry,” she whispered softly. Her eyes were still fierce. “I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you when they’ve gone-”

“I can see their shoes,” he murmured. “In a minute, show me who’s boss, baby, push me against the pole so my back is to them.”

She squeezed his neck again, hating herself for not thinking it through, for ruining it when they only had seven hours.

Now they might get stuck on this damn line until those girls got off and the car emptied and no one knew them any more. Fuck it all.

Pay attention, Beckett.

He was a spy. Not just some guy she’d picked up at a bar.

\-----

"It's our lucky day," she breathed, blinking. She hardly dared to believe it.

The two girls were getting off at the next stop. It was done, over, just like that.

"Not luck," Castle murmured, both hands on her hips, head tilted down. "Fate. The universe wants us to fuck."

She shivered on a laugh, squeezing the back of his neck where her hand still rested. She'd been about to spin him around into the pole, like he'd instructed, but they didn't need to do that now. No need to draw more attention to themselves.

He kissed the underside of her jaw, his face still averted. She had kept his head at the side of her face as if she'd been whispering in his ear this whole time and he'd been bending over her to hear, contrite and apologetic for manhandling her. It had worked, but his neck had to be stiffening up.

And arousal was licking through her with every tickling breath he hummed across her skin.

"They've moved out of my range of sight," he murmured. "Check to be sure they leave."

She could use the reflection in the windows; it was easy to keep track of the girls. "I've got them. In front of the doors."

"Good girl." He clutched her jacket and tugged in reminder. "Talk to me."

She was supposed to keep talking; she was supposed to be a girlfriend telling her man a long and complicated story, necessitating him bending close to her.

But she had a real story to tell, and it was coming out despite her. "That boy whose father I didn't report, for the gun-" and shooting her "-he's shown up twice at the Twelfth looking for me." It was hard to admit, difficult to let someone else know that she'd been affected. "The first time he brought me a candy bar. He'd kept it in his pocket for--a long time, I guess--it was warm and melted. He was so proud to have something to bring, as a thank you."

Castle nodded against her; she knew he wanted to say more but he couldn't, not like this, not when this was supposed to be just words in his ear to cover her mistake.

"The second time, he brought a pack of playing cards. I was doing roster duties, filling out my time sheet and that kind of shit, and he stood beside me and talked while he played solitaire. He tried to give me the cards but I wouldn't let him. He's in a foster home because his dad got charged for drug possession."

"Shit," Castle sighed.

"His name is Toma. He's got chubby cheeks for a boy his age. I don't want to like him so much but I can't help it. It's gonna kill me the first time I gotta arrest him."

She sighed, felt his interest and need coiled for the story. But she didn't want to speak anymore; the subway car had slowed, the platform was resolving before their eyes.

The girls got off.

“We’re clear,” she sighed.

Castle lifted his head. His hands slid under her jacket and crept under the hem of her workout shirt. His thumbs coasted over bare skin. "Is Toma doing something illegal?"

She shook her head.

"But he will," Rick filled in. His throat worked, something real in his eyes that she couldn't look at.

She leaned her head back against the pole for a moment, and then the subway fluxed as people adjusted to the new passengers; Castle was crowded into her again. More than before. He was trying to embrace her.

"Don't," she said. "Leave it alone. Don't."

He let go.

"Our stop is next," she said instead. Even though he knew that.

\-----

They got off at her stop and he took her by the hand on the platform, not letting her go. She didn't want his hand in hers after giving up a story like that, but she also didn't want to lose him. He was the type for skulking to avoid surveillance, and if she wasn't careful of him, they would get separated.

They only had seven hours. Only seven hours and how much could be crammed into only half of a night?

"Dinner," he said, tugging.

"What?" she called, jogging after him, unhappy.

Unhappy. She was viciously unhappy and she just wanted to fuck, just not think, no more thinking-

"I haven't eaten in twenty-four hours, trying to get back here," he said briskly, not looking at her. "I'll barely be able to get it up if I don't eat something. And don't say you'll do all the work, Beckett. I have very specific plans for us."

She sighed. But she couldn't remember if she'd eaten dinner last night, and lunch had been half a taco eaten from a cart right before a home invasion call. "Fine. Fast-"

"Remy's," he said with relish. "Fuck, you've really ruined me, you know that? I crave fucking you and I crave whiskey BBQ hamburgers."

She laughed, a choked thing as she hustled up the steps and into the dark New York night. "Worse things to crave."

"Just wait until I want to fuck you while eating whiskey BBQ-" His voice altered, stopped.

She glanced over at him, eyebrow rocketing up at the look on his face. Her heart was beating like mad, and it wasn't from the race up the stairs or the power-walk down the sidewalk. "You know you can buy a bottle of their sauce."

"Oh, fucking hell, Beckett," he growled. His eyes were feral. The look he gave her made the hair stand up on the back of her neck and she remembered, viscerally, how rough he'd been in the shower, uncontained, unable to hold it back.

He hadn't given her a second thought; he'd taken her.

She was liquid fire under her skin, so aroused she thought he could smell it. Scent her like an animal.

"We'll take it to go," he said then, his voice like a growl.

"I'm buying a bottle of BBQ sauce," she added. "You can't stop me."

She had ideas too. She had plans for him; plans she'd concocted late at night when exhaustion couldn't shut off her brain. She would touch herself and feel him pressed over her, pressing her open, feel him deeply--a ghost, a phantom, a spy.

She had twenty days worth of demented fantasies stored up and they only had seven hours.

\-----

But when they actually walked into Remy’s, she steered him away from the front counter and bypassed the register, went straight back to a booth.

He didn’t say it. He didn’t question it. He sat down on his side and she on hers and she pressed her hands to the cold plastic and tried not to think only seven hours.

“Twenty-four hours without eating,” she said. It was all the explanation she had. She didn’t know herself except that when they had gotten to the sidewalk outside the diner, she had this sick sensation of dread at the idea of it already being over, and the anticipation was made all the more intense by delaying the inevitable.

“This is too far away,” he answered. His eyes were devouring her.

She felt again the raw place that was her cunt, like a wound, where he had fucked her in the shower. She felt it like a lick of current up inside her body, sharp and startling and painful.

And addictive.

She shifted towards the window and he sprang to his feet and nearly collided with the waitress who had come to take their orders.

But he was cat-like, swiftly maneuvering around the woman to drop down on Beckett’s side of the booth and press against her, shoulder to knee.

“Sorry,” the waitress was still saying, caught up in the near-collision as if she hadn’t even seen that Castle had already sat down again.

His fingers stroked Beckett’s knee.

“Okay, let me get situated,” the woman flustered. “My pen is...”

His body leaned forward into the table as if perusing the menu, but his fingers shifted up her inside thigh. Aggressively up. His thumb pushed into the faint seam of her yoga pants.

She contracted. Her cunt. Contracted. Inside like a fist for wanting him.

“All right, what can I get you?”

Some fucking privacy and his fingers playing just this tune, right there, oh, fuck, yes.

“Two milkshakes, one strawberry, one a mixture of chocolate and banana--Carly knows how I like it--and a couple waters as well. I want your Whiskey BBQ Burgers but not the grilled onions, the sweet potato fries, and she’ll have... Kate. Hey. Kate. What do you want, baby? Veggie burger?”

She swallowed. “No, turkey burger this time. The California burger. No fries.”

“Yes, ma’am. Have it right out.” She took their menus and slotted them in the napkin holder at the end of the table, then she moved off to place their orders.

He was stroking the tips of his fingers over her yoga pants, around and down, between her thighs and at her crotch, teasing. She wasn’t going to make it.

“I need you to touch me,” Kate said, turning her head into his shoulder. Closing her eyes.

“Like this.”

“More than that.”

His fingers pressed a little harder. “This?”

“More,” she got out, nipping his shoulder with her teeth. She had to lay her cheek against the hard bone of his socket, fight for breath as he teased. His fingers danced at the crease of her thigh and came up to the waistband of her pants.

He tucked his pinky inside. “This?”

“Closer.”

He hummed and tilted his head so that his mouth laid a kiss at her forehead as if in good girl, and she nudged her hips up in response. Unable to help it.

He used the shadowed cover of the wood table and the close booth, the dark night outside that pressed at the windows to hide what he was doing. He was just that good too, and nothing showed on his face, his arm wasn’t in any awkward position.

He pushed his fingers down her pants and inside her panties.

She closed her eyes and feigned exhaustion, felt the heat climbing through her veins like a rope ladder, unsteady and struggling and working at it.

“You’re wet for me,” he murmured.

His two fingers spread the lips of her cunt and held her open. It pushed her clit against the material of her panties, wet and clinging. And here was his middle finger, stroking down to her slit and avoiding the burning place, making her hips shiver under the table.

“If I do it slowly, can you keep quiet?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I think I can.”

“If you attract attention, they’ll all wonder if I touched you. They’ll remember us. We might get thrown out.”

“I won’t make a sound.”

“You can make those little sounds,” he murmured. His nose nuzzled her temple, his breath across her skin, his fingers petting her sex in these light, light strokes that made her dizzy.

“Little sounds. Okay.”

“Mewling, sweetheart.” His fingers slipped deeper. She jerked. “Like a baby kitten.”

“Like that,” she echoed, turning her head to the window, not seeing. Not looking. Feeling.

His hand heavy in her lap, at the juncture of her thighs, his fingers exploring, sliding, caressing. Petting. He was petting her sex like a slick-furred animal, stroking again and again.

She had to close her eyes.

He rolled his finger over her clit and she jerked, a shocky breath that got trapped in her lungs. She realized she was clutching his wrist as if to keep him there.

He pressed harder, two fingers stroking her folds and up to her clit with a rolling crunch, popping the hood back and forth over her clit. She gritted her teeth to keep it back, down, keep it contained.

He hooked his fingers in the jut of her pelvic bone and crushed her clit there. She jerked and swallowed a hard breath, felt her orgasm contracting in her cunt, fierce paroxysms of release, an angry echo of the violence in that shower which demanded more.

When she was no longer breathing so fast and sweat had begun to cool at her temples, Rick withdrew his fingers and pressed her panties into her soaked crotch. He removed his hand from her pants and touched his fingers to his own lips.

Sucked.

She mewled softly, knowing the sound was coming out even as it did, and she closed her eyes.

Still the orgasm was flush in her, making the world sedate.

Seven hours of this.

Seven whole hours with this man.

\-----

Every time she lifted the burger to her mouth, he made rather obscene noises in his throat, and she was enjoying it--she liked being able to tease him. She even liked how close he was sitting beside her, how their elbows knocked into each other and his thigh pressed to hers.

He kept reaching over and dropping his sweet potato fries onto her plate. She hadn’t gotten any with her turkey burger, but that apparently wasn’t good enough for him.

Beckett put her burger down and wiped her mouth with her napkin, leaned against the window to look at him. He’d been hungry all right; he had inhaled his burger, already pushing the last bite into his mouth, chewing fast.

She nudged her knee into his thigh and he glanced at her, grinned, swallowing. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she said.

“What’s up.”

“Honestly, never thought I’d see you back here.”

“Remy’s? I know,” he said, ducking his head. “Should avoid it, really should. They know me here. Not good. But. Couldn’t help myself.”

She had meant New York City, here. With her. She had expected to never see him again. And then he had sent her a cell phone and called her until she had answered.

She shouldn’t have answered. But she had. Couldn’t really help herself.

He picked up another couple fries, moved to drop them on her plate. She gripped his wrist, shook her head. “Full.”

He frowned. “You’ve eaten a third of your burger.”

“And every single french fry you dropped on my plate, asshole. Don’t question me. I’m not into that.”

He frowned and glanced at her hand still wrapped around his wrist. She let him go and he withdrew, popped the fries into his own mouth instead. She put her chin on her hand and watched him finish off his fries, one at a time, dragging them through ketchup--all things he’d never eaten before he’d met her. So he’d said.

The muscles of his arms flexed whenever he moved. His biceps were knotted and strong; she had a thing for the way he gripped her, that power. He was non-descript when he wanted to be and then, when she wasn’t looking, he just filled up the space.

He had soft hair on his arms, she remembered. Soft under her fingers, against her cheek when he wrapped his arm under her neck and cradled her from behind. Soft and strong-

“Stop watching me,” he muttered.

She let out a breath. “How did you even get here?” Twenty-four hours without food.

“Got nicked, but the DI kicked me to the curb so he could follow me back to the crew. Course I’m not doing that-” That fucking smirk, the way he grinne at her, shit. “-So I’m lying low for forty-eight until my face isn’t so hot. I shook the DI’s men and came here.”

She turned in the booth and drew her leg up, wrapped a loose arm around her knee. “Wasn’t asking what happened in Ireland. You know I’m not supposed to know any of that. I’m saying--how was the travel?”

“Oh, the trip? Huh, well. Had to--uh--keep it off the radar, so first it was a truck to Dublin. Boat to London. Train to Paris. Flight out of there to San Francisco. What next? Oh, the fucking bus. Shit, I will never do that again. But I got to a private strip that a friend has connections with, flew to Philadelphia. Bus here.”

“Buses were bad?”

“Bus is awful.”

“Bus here was bad?”

“Not as,” he shrugged. “Fucking unreal. Nothing like Europe.”

“I bet,” she murmured. When he talked, he had this way of animating his face that she hadn’t paid attention to before. He was relaxed, which had the effect of revealing things he maybe didn’t mean to reveal.

When they’d been crawling through the gym’s ductwork to escape, his face had been a mask. Completely dialed in, focused on the end game, the mission.

Eating dinner at Remy’s with his hand wrapped around her ankle, shoveling fries into his mouth with the other hand, his guard was down. And she didn’t think purposefully; he couldn’t seem to help it.

It was interesting. It proved she affected him like he did her.

“You done?” she said, flexing her sneakered foot so his fingers were jostled.

“Done? You want to take the milkshakes to go? She’s gonna bring them out at any moment.”

“Forgot the milkshakes,” she admitted. “But yeah. To go.”

“I’ll tell her,” he nodded. He licked his fingers of the salt and pushed off against the table. “Stay right there?”

He clipped her knee with his hand, a strangely gentle gesture, and then he headed towards the counter to talk to their waitress. Or probably Carly, who would be making their shakes.

Damn it. He was paying.

Fuck. Well. Whatever. Six hours and twenty minutes. Let him pay.

\-----

They had seats this time, side by side on the subway. The car was strangely empty, the end car in the train, and her soldier sat close.

“Better than the bus?”

He laughed, his eyes skittering to hers, and she admired the way his face opened up to her. How she had done that. She leaned in and touched her mouth to his, tasting the banana and chocolate of his milkshake, the frozen cold of his lips.

The rough intrusion of his tongue. Fuck. She gripped the back of his neck and slid closer on the plastic seat, her milkshake thumping against his chest. He pushed at her mouth, deep strokes of his tongue, angling to get at her.

She felt it flush through her system, the heat that always flared so uncontrollably when he touched her. His hand came to her neck, strangely, the backs of his fingers, and she swallowed to feel him against her throat.

He kissed her again, taking his time with it, her breath shallow as she tried to get closer.

He squeezed her neck, tightening, and she gasped.

His tongue dived deeper, strong, taking from her. She felt the ache between her legs every time he thrust in her mouth, every punishing grip of his fingers. Tightening on her throat, closing up, so that her breathing was rough.

Squeezed impossibly tighter; she wheezed, flames going up in her body.

He jerked back, blinking and staring at her. She stared back, the cold plastic of the milkshake cup against her breast and seeping through the layers to her nipple.

“Fuck,” he rasped. The curse was drawn out.

His thumb had dug in under her jaw; he knew exactly where to grip her throat so that the blood rushed too fast and she felt a little dizzy.

“Baby,” he said roughly. “I...”

She reached out and knuckled his crotch. He moaned and closed his eyes, his head falling forward. She felt his thickness under her knuckles, kneaded what she could through the denim of his jeans.

The subway slowed.

“Fuck,” he growled.

She flattened her hand to his thigh and he released her throat, his hand dragging down her sternum and gripping her jacket.

The subway pulled into the station and she withdrew her hand, turning her head to look at the opening doors.

She willed the world to just give her this one. Keep the car empty. Just tonight. She needed it.

The doors remained open, the PA speaker announced the next stop, the car clicked as it settled on the tracks.

Please.

The doors closed.

They were still alone.

Beckett grabbed both milkshakes and shoved them behind her back, turned and slid over his thigh and into his lap.

Grinding.

\-----

He fondled her. He was fondling her on a well-lit subway car as it rocketed through the tunnels under New York City. His fingers twisted her nipple while his other hand moved from her throat to her crotch, back and forth, like he didn’t know which he liked better.

Or which she liked better.

She didn’t know either. His fingers at her throat, the slight pressure, made her breath short and her lungs expand for more, made her breasts heavier and her nipples hurt inside her bra.

Until his hand got to her, kneading her breast with just the right amount of force to make her groan, massaging and twisting and fondling her. And then the hand at her neck would loosen and she would gasp, and he would drag his hand down her sternum and tuck inside her pants, drag her panties roughly aside so that they were soaked and twisted, and then he would finger fuck her.

She moaned, rocking on his hand, her head snapping back and hitting the metal bar of the seat behind her. He fingered her, fondled her, he was fucking her on a subway car with a complete lack of concern for the outside world--or for himself.

She tried to get at his crotch, tried to dig the heel of her hand through his pants, but it was impossible when his hands were all over her, when she couldn’t even see through the slit of her closed eyes.

She breathed hard, knees digging into the plastic seat beside his hips, riding his hand.

Her breasts hurt. She found that odd, that the sensation of pain rode through so sharply, so suddenly, that she couldn’t stand it.

Beckett caught his hand at her breast, tried to tug him away, but he wouldn’t let go. He was fucking going for it, almost like he didn’t even need her cooperation--and fuck, oh, fuck, he didn’t at all, did he? He just touched her and she would do anything.

She couldn’t take it. She was going to cry if he--it was like he was biting her nipple with his teeth; he must be using his nails. She gasped and choked on a scream, bent back his thumb to get him off her nipple.

He grunted, fingers squeezing around hers, flipping her hand so suddenly, so quickly that she found herself pushed back to the seat behind her, hard, her hand immobolized.

She blinked. Felt his fingers inside her cunt and hooked hard at her front wall.

Her orgasm was right there. Close. She flexed her fingers in his hand and his eyes seemed to clear, focus on her again.

He loosened his hand. Both hands, looked like he was about to apologize.

“Don’t stop,” she breathed.

His eyes narrowed.

“Don’t you fucking stop--you started this.” She dragged his hand up between her breasts, the backs of his fingers rubbing her sternum, and placed him at her neck. At her throat.

“Beckett,” he husked.

She used her thumb to angle his thumb, and he swore at her, clenched her throat in his hand.

She moaned through the pressure of his fingers, her hips stuttering up. He curled his fingers both places, at her throat, inside her cunt, and she felt stars blooming, felt the whole world shudder and fall apart.

He leaned forward into her and sucked the noises out of her mouth, muffling her with his tongue until she was nothing. Nothing but starbursts.

\-----

“Beckett.”

She breathed.

“Kate.”

She was breathing.

“Hey, love, the train is slowing down.”

She could breathe. She could. She was breathing.

“Kate, sweetheart.” Fingers against her thighs, clothes adjusted. “Love, we’re almost at the platform.”

She sucked in another breath, found her fingers tingling and clutched around his jacket.

“Kate? Beckett. Straighten the fuck up.”

She jerked upright, blinking dazedly at him, felt the bruises around her throat and the constriction of her airway.

And the fucking amazing wonderful buzz that had her whole body heavy and pleased and drugged out.

He framed her hips, rubbing at her skin under her shirt. She was--messy, dissheveled. She felt undone.

“You okay?”

She nodded.

“Much as I love having you in my lap, looking thoroughly fucked and entirely fuckable, Kate Beckett, we’re here.”

“Here.”

He nodded his head towards the windows and she saw the station sliding into place.

Beckett jerked to her feet with a gasp, knocking her head into the metal pole and stumbling over his legs so that he had to catch her. Castle stood up with her as the subway rocked to a stop, and she felt his hands straightening her clothes, smoothing her hair down.

Her hair?

“Better,” he murmured. “But you gotta get that look off your face.”

She tried to control her features, tried. She really was trying. He was laughing at her as the doors slid open.

“Never mind, baby. I’ll just walk home fucking hard as a rock. Don’t mind me.”

She inadvertently cast her eyes down to his crotch and her whole body went up in flames at the sight of his massive erection. He groaned and pushed her forward, pushed her right off the subway train with her in front of him, hiding it.

His arm was around her neck, loose this time, but the angle of his elbow, she figured out, hid the bruises that must be forming. As they moved through the platform, people didn’t even look at them, and his body was heated and solid at her back.

He touched his mouth to her ear as they went up the escalator. “You’re beautiful, you know?”

She tried to shrug him off, her wits coming back to her, not okay with words so soft in her ear.

“Beautiful in my lap, riding my hand. Even the bruises I’ve left on your neck make me hard for you.”

She sucked in a breath, feeling every bruise, barely able to breathe. But her airway clear; it was only the memory of that sensation, the rising well of her arousal.

“And not because I want to bruise you, Beckett. But because you let me. Do you know how fucking erotic it is to know you want me that much? Even when I can’t quite control myself, you still want me.”

She felt her hand trembling on the escalator’s handrail. She opened her mouth to say, don’t let it go to your head. But her throat wouldn’t work, wouldn’t let her voice out at all. She strained to speak, her heart pounding in her chest.

He growled in her ear. “You’re fucking hot, but it’s not okay to hurt you and then do nothing. Strain like that, you’ll damage your vocal cords. We’ll get you some salt water at home, be good as new. Just be easy.”

Easy? She glanced back at him, wondered how many whores--oh, sorry, assets--he’d had to ply with salt water and ice. How many times he’d choked a girl to get his rocks off.

(Only he hadn’t come, had he? She had. She had come with his fingers around her throat and that wild look on his face and his fingers mangling her clit.)

They had reached the top of the escalator and she had to step off, him right at her side, his arm falling loosely around her shoulder. He was grinning again, shaking his head like he could read her mind.

“Don’t even look at me like that. I know what you’re thinking. How many times do you think I’ve taken a blow to the windpipe and had to doctor myself?”

She pressed her lips together, raising her eyebrows, and he growled at her, gripping her bicep and hustling her across the floor to the stairs leading to the street.

“Don’t fucking pretend, Beckett. You’re the only one I’d choke. You think a guy like me can afford a fucking lawsuit while he’s undercover? Or worse yet, blackmail?”

She glanced at him beside her, suddenly dazzled by a street lamp as they reached the sidewalk. He was grimly serious.

He was serious.

Well, of course, he couldn’t let go like that with someone who might use it against him. He’d never be able to do what he wanted when he fucked a woman, because they were all part of the cover.

But not her. She wasn’t a cover, she was--she was homebase.

She was his safety.

God. That was terrifying.

\-----

They were only blocks from her building when she realized.

"Oh, damn it," she whispered, stopping dead still.

Castle jerked to a halt, spun her out of the flow of pedestrian traffic and up against the side of a concrete edifice. "Beckett?"

"Our milkshakes," she whispered. "On the subway."

His face cleared; he shrugged. "Is that all? Come on. We're nearly-"

"What do you mean, is that all? Our fingerprints are on those cups."

"Styrofoam cups that sweat. Mostly deteriorated by now. And some transit authority will simply clean the cars out at the end of the line and throw them away. No big deal, baby. Promise." He was nudging her towards the sidewalk again. "Come on. We are so close to me stripping all your clothes off and having my way with you."

She laughed, bright and hard, caught unaware by his blunt need. But why had that surprised her?

"That's what you think," she said, squeezing his fingers as he dragged her by the hand. "What if I'm the one having my way?"

"You will be," he said darkly. "I promise you. When I fuck you, Beckett, you'll be having your way. Over and over and ov-"

She jerked hard on his arm to make him shut up, and they covered the last block in silence--his leering and hers simmering--so that when she got to her security door, she jammed the key hard in the lock.

Took extra time, time she was wasting, her hands fumbling because she was worked up, she had let him push all her buttons. She had shown him how to get to her, every time, whether her righteous indignation or her fierce hunger for him, didn't matter. Felt the same. Being furious with him felt the same as being dominated/dominating (and how they were the same, she had never guessed, could never have guessed, and even now couldn't explain).

"You're hot when you're angry," he murmured.

"You talk too much," she muttered, wrenching open the building’s door. Seven hours, under seven hours now. He hadn't touched her except to drag her by the hand down the sidewalk and even as she shut the door behind them and climbed the stairs to her floor, he wasn't touching her.

Why the fuck wasn't he touching her? He had fucked her silly in the gym’s shower and pushed his fingers into her pants twice in public places and now that they were alone inside her building--nothing?

She wanted to reach back and grab his fucking crotch and send him to his knees, but still he trailed behind her, not making a move.

What the fuck was wrong with him?

"You make me crazy," he said. "Hot and bothered and fucking pissed off. You're so angry at me--and for no damn reason--and it's making me fucking hard. I don't get it. I don't understand how you do this to me."

"You make me fucking insane," she hissed. "So it's only fair. I hope you're lying awake at night, aching with it. I hope you're tossing and turning and humping the mattress trying to get some damn relief."

She stomped down the hall to her door, nearly missed it when he said, "Like you?"

She pretended she hadn't heard it--she was far enough for it to fly--and she jammed her key into her own front door and shoved it open.

She flung the door wide and faced her immaculate living room, thinking strangely, what in the hell is wrong with me, when he came up at her back and cupped her breasts in his hands, slamming the door shut with a foot.

"Are you aching for me at night?" he whispered, kneading her breasts. "Are you rubbing yourself into the mattress for relief?" He twisted her nipples fiercely, back and forth, not letting up. "Do you use those toys on yourself, baby, and imagine it's my hands, my cock inside you, touching you, making you burn?"

She breathed. She had to breathe. "Yes," she croaked.

And hated herself for saying.

Time to turn the fucking tables.

Beckett spun around and cupped him fiercely through his jeans, fingers clutching hard so he wouldn't dare try to back away. His eyes grew feral, immediately dangerous, like the look he'd had on the subway.

He couldn't control himself, but she could.

She would.

\-----

She had control of him.

He was helpless to her. His face was slack with wanting, his hands kept touching, touching, everywhere, as if trying to get to her like she was getting to him, but she had him.

Fuck, it felt so good. She had him.

"Take your pants off for me," she said.

He was already shirtless, his muscles moving under his skin as he had tensed, waiting for her next command. When she spoke, he was already starting to move, so ready for it.

Richard unbuttoned his jeans, pulled down the zipper. Slowly, carefully, because he was fucking hard as a rock under there, and it had to hurt him. How he strained for her. She stepped back into his body heat as he moved his hands down, still fully clothed herself, still teasing him with the peek of a bra strap or the flash of her bare belly as she rubbed her shirt up.

He was breathing hard. His hands pushed his jeans down and he stepped out of them. His bare toes crunched on the wood floor and released. He was in boxer briefs again, as he'd been every time so far, the material tight around his thighs and form-fitting. Very form-fitting. She could see the perfect outline of his cock.

Her mouth was dry; she had to lick her bottom lip and swallow hard. He cursed at her under his breath, a hand coming to his cock and gripping himself as he tried to control his reaction.

She swatted his hand away. "That's not for you to touch. That's mine."

He growled but he dropped his hand. She could feel his eyes on her, staring at her, and she slowly dragged the hem of her shirt up and over her head. Her breasts felt heavy, her lungs didn't seem to want to expand. She watched his cock grow impossibly harder, bigger, thicker, and she rubbed her thumb under the wire of her bra, soothing the skin and shifting her breasts in their cups.

"Kate," he growled.

"I have less than seven hours to make you completely fucking undone, Richard. So keep your mouth shut and let me work."

He growled again abut there was a whine in his voice that made her tingle. Between her legs was a heat she was having a hard time ignoring.

She stepped into him, still wearing her pants and bra--but yoga pants, so it would be easy enough--and she framed his hips with her hands, swayed him into her.

He moaned and dropped his head to her neck, breathing hard, gulping those breaths, his lips moving at her hair. She scratched her nails over his flanks and bumped her groin against his.

His cock twitched. She felt him, felt it, the strength of his need between her legs. She trailed her fingernails over his boxer-briefs, the soft cotton between her and him, and he whimpered her name into her ear as she touched him.

"I can feel your cock," she murmured. "Every ridge of it. Is that what you call it? A cock?"

"What?" he rasped.

"Or do you call it a dick? As in, short for Richard?"

"You're not funny," he growled.

"Dick is a small word for such a big thing."

"Cock," he growled. "I call it my cock. No other word."

"There really isn't a better one," she murmured, let him know she meant his. Nothing better than this bulging, hard thing under her fingers. "I'm wet for you already, and you fucked me hard in the shower. So hard I should be set for days. But instead I remember how fierce you were for me, and I feel you like this, and I just want you inside me."

"Fuck, Kate. Kate. Please-"

She pushed her hands into his boxers and closed her fingers around him, cutting off all words.

\-----

He shouted a curse when she gripped him. She remembered how he’d said, I choke it so she did the same now, gripping him ruthlessly, and Castle practically came up on his toes, swaying hard.

His collarbone clipped her shoulder. She widened her thighs to brace his weight and he rattled a harsh breath, still swaying with the pulse of her hand around him.

His curse was a rattle in his chest; she barely made out the words under the moan. She tightened one hand at his base and wrapped her other hand around him, ducking her head to look.

“Kate, don’t stop,” he gasped.

“Just want to look.” Her voice cracked as it came out and his hands gripped her hips tighter. “You’re huge, baby.”

He was half out of his boxers, the gray material tight against her wrists. She angled his erection against the front placket and he yelped. His hips jerked in her hand, like a reflex, and she paid attention, did it again.

“Kate.” He gripped her hips so fiercely that it felt like his thumbs were trying to dislocate her joints. He was swaying again, barely on his feet.

“You like that?” she rasped. She was hoarse, her throat was killing her, but she knew now what caused that reaction in him.

It was when she rubbed the slit at the head of his cock over that cotton. He lost it. She had her hands full of his erection, the pulse and throb of it, but she dragged her thumb along his shaft and down, releasing him to put her plan into action.

He whimpered when she let go.

“Yeah, I know you liked that. Don’t worry, I won’t stop, love.”

He gasped for breath, loosening his hold on her. But she wasn’t letting him off the hook that fast. Instead, she slid her hands at his thighs and pushed his briefs down, popping the elastic waistband hard over his cock.

“Fuck,” he croaked.

She stepped into him and skimmed her hands back to his ass, her bare stomach touching his cock as she peeled his briefs over those firm glutes.

“Beckett, this is--I can’t-” He ground his teeth down and knocked his cheek into hers, a little hard, their bones clashing.

“You can.” She ignored the warning, stroked her hands back to his cock, pumped him hard with a curl of her fist.

“Fuck,” he rasped, his hips bucking.

She started a slower rhythm, letting him get lost in the sensation of that push and pull, letting him feel the grip of her fingers around him. He started to groan, a sound dragged out of his chest, somewhere deep, and she nearly let that be enough.

She nearly lost herself in it too. “You sound erotic,” she husked.

But she remembered his stark, fierce face in the shower when he had fucked her without warning, remembered riding his hand in the subway while he squeezed her neck, and that was what she wanted.

That wild, feral surrender.

She kept her fingers around him, but she moved her other hand from his base, added a little tug at the head of his cock.

He gasped, his hips bucking, and she took that as encouragement.

He was already so far gone.

“Rick,” she husked. Her voice was a cracked thing through her tight windpipe. “Agent Castle, look at me.”

His eyes dragged up to hers, lids heavy with desperate want, his lips parted.

“That’s it, love,” she murmured. “You don’t want to miss this.”

“No,” he said, the word barely leaving his mouth. He was tracing a line down her throat, caressing the bruises. “Don’t wanna miss...”

She lifted her hand and opened her mouth, slid her thumb inside. His eyes jerked up to her mouth. Beckett sucked on the end of her digit, licked her fingerprint and up to her nail, and then held up the wet thumb to him.

“Beck...”

She brought her hand down to his raging cock that she was, even still now, working in her other fist. She licked her lips and Castle’s lashes drooped, his gaze zeroed in on her mottled neck.

Beckett rubbed her wet thumb over the slit at the head of his cock, rubbing until she felt the leak of pre-cum and the thrusting jerk of his hips.

“Beckett!” he shouted.

“Mm,” she hummed. “Come on, love. You’re right on the edge for me.”

She flicked her nail at the head of him and that was all it took. Castle’s knees dipped, his hips jerked, and his cock pulsed in her hands, throbbed twice as he thrust, and his ejaculate burst out of him. Sloppy, thick, hot--he orgasmed in her grip and sprayed across her belly, her groin, her pants, his own hands gripping her as he mindlessly thrust.

She worked him through it, squeezing and tightening until he moaned and crashed his forehead to her shoulder, sagging against her.

She released his cock and slowly slid her arm around his waist. His hips bumped hers, thick and wet between them, and suddenly his body was wrapped around her, dragging her up into him.

“Cas-”

He growled and swept her off her feet, carried her away from the living room entry and towards the kitchen. She squeaked in surprise, hadn’t thought he could recover that fast, the sticky eroticism of his come plastered to her pants and stomach.

“Let me-”

He dropped her on the counter beside the fridge and roughly spread her thighs, pushing in hard between her legs and then wrapped his arms around her waist. He dragged her into his chest and leaned in, put his mouth on her throat.

She moaned in her cracked and broken voice, panting hard as he sucked at those bruised placed, the perfect ovals where his fingers had been.

And then he leaned back.

She slowly opened her eyes.

He was gripping her thighs in his hands, his gaze intent and determined. His boxer briefs were still high on his thighs, sticky with the milk of his orgasm.

“Beckett,” he growled.

“Yeah,” she grunted. Her throat was killing her; he was killing her.

“Salt water.”

She blinked.

He moved and suddenly he was opening the cabinet door behind her head and grabbing a glass.

He really wanted her to fucking gargle salt water?

\-----

“I’m not gargling fucking salt water.”

She tried to slap his hand away, but he jerked the cup back and gripped her wrist. Painfully. “You are gargling fucking salt water, baby, because I got plans for you.”

She narrowed her eyes, snaking a leg around his waist and jerking to bring him in. He didn’t even rock towards her; he was steady. Steady and holding out that glass of water that he’d mixed salt into.

“Stop fucking around, Richard.”

She needed her pants off. She needed-

His free hand left her thigh and his fingers touched her neck, dragging strangely across her carotid artery. “Beckett, you don’t seem to understand.”

She ignored the skittering danger that went through her at his touch. She put her hands on the button of her pants and lifted her hips to get him going. “You’re so fucking high-handed. Just-”

“Kate,” he insisted, his fingers squeezing at her throat. She stuttered to a stop and he stepped into her spread knees, stroking lightly now at her neck. “Kate, love, I want to fuck that pretty, bruised throat. But, sweetheart-” He leaned in and nuzzled his nose against hers, breathing softly at her jaw before he kissed her. “-oh, love, you’ll need the salt water to take down the swelling first or it’ll never work.”

She sucked in a dark breath and reached for the cup in his hands, knocking her head back and swilling the water. She choked a moment, not expecting the intensity of the taste, and then she hummed until her vocal cords vibrated.

Beckett gargled the salt water, blinking up at the ceiling as Rick stroked his fingers down her neck. Down and down her neck, stroking, soft and light.

She lowered her chin and leaned forward, spit the salt water back into the cup.

Castle pressed his fingers into one of the bruises. Harder. She winced and glanced at him.

She hadn’t seen him quite like this during the week they’d had. He’d been relentless and fairly cavalier, he’d even been dense--not seeing her, not seeing what he did to her--but not like this.

This he saw. He enjoyed.

She’d gotten the soldier in her bed, she realized. That week, he’d been fresh from the army and heading back to that life he had used to lead before 9/11. But now he’d had nearly a month under deep cover, and it had done something to him.

It had brought something up in him. Something dark and commanding and urgent. She didn’t want to think about it too much, about how much she liked it, fucking him and having him fuck her back, having him do whatever the fuck he wanted.

She liked this man. The spy.

The spy who fucked her.

She sucked in a breath and felt his fingers around her neck. “All better,” she said, but her voice broke. Almost nothing.

“Oh, not quite, Beckett. Not quite all better. One more thing.”

She reached out and caught his hardening cock, stroking, wicked delight rising up inside her.

But he looked at her like it was nothing.

She found herself pouting at him, knowing it was a damn tease, a falseness, but she couldn’t help herself. She hooked her arms around his neck, breathed deeply to lift her berasts, but she just wanted him so badly. Her sex was thick with arousal, wet and desperate, and she didn’t even care.

“One more thing, baby. You’ll like this, I promise.”

He drew her arms down, kissing the inside of her wrists. She saw bruises there too, thumbprints of bruises, and she was distracted for a moment by the livid map of marks he’d left over her body.

And then he opened the freezer door and withdrew the ice cube tray.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“See, Beckett,” he murmured. “There’s this thing I can do with ice.”

She stared at him.

He grinned back. “Baby, you might want to take your pants off before we get started. Gonna get wet.”

She felt her lips curl. “I’m already wet, Richard.”

\-----

He stripped her pants, teasing her inside thighs with his cold fingers, dragging his mouth across her skin and nipping his teeth at the fleshiness of her thighs. He pressed his face between her legs, bit at the soaked and twisted fabric of her panties so that she moaned, clutching his head to her.

He scraped his rough-shaven jaw against her skin and lifted, trailing a line of wet kisses up her sternum, tongue and teeth to her bra. He stroked deft hands around her ribs and to her back, dragged her closer to him, and then used his teeth to pop open the front clasp of her bra.

She released his shoulders to shrug down the straps, pulled her bra off and slung it away. Her throat was raw, she realized it was really starting to hurt, the salt stirring things up, but Castle was cupping her bare breasts and kissing the top of her chest, a rhythm to it that made her hips arch.

He bit her nipple and she screamed, her voice breaking as her head jerked back. She slammed against the cabinets, crossing her legs at his waist, and Castle murmured sweet words against her skin, sucking on her breasts as if in apology.

She moaned, the crack in her tone reminding her of what he wanted to do, what he had planned, I want to fuck that pretty and bruised throat , and she had to gulp down a breath as he kneaded her breasts.

Her body wouldn’t stop rocking, that place between her legs burning as she ground her hips against him. The counter made it impossible when he was holding her off like this, and then his teeth would catch at the skin of her breast.

And all over again, his apologies in little licks of his tongue and soft rubs of his lips. Going nowhere fast.

“Fuck,” she groaned. She was trembling, her breasts were on fire with his mouth, his teeth, his wet saliva around her nipples. She needed--badly--to touch herself, to push her fingers against her clit and rub until this feeling shattered, but she couldn’t get a hand between them to try.

And then ice.

She yelped, a leg dropping from around his waist, her head jerking up as the ice cube trailed below her ear.

“What,” she gasped. “What, what-”

“Your throat is swollen, sweetheart.” He coasted the ice cube down the side of her neck, wet and smooth, gliding over her skin.

Kate stared at him, the dark and so deeply pleased look in his eyes. He cupped her breast in one hand and dragged the ice cube down the slope of her chest to meet his kneading fingers.

“Castle,” she whispered.

He circled her areola with the ice, rivulets breaking free and slipping over her nipple so that she shivered. Her breasts were swollen, overheated, but her nipples were tight and aching. He dragged the ice around and around, making her dizzy with sensation.

“Thought--you said my throat,” she husked.

“Oh. I must have slipped.”

She laughed, couldn’t help it, opening her eyes to him again.

She watched the darkness in his face as he curved the underside of her breast with the ice, dripping wet, his hot hands already melting the cube. She drew her hand up between them and touched his chest, needed the contact, needed to feel him. The soldier she had fucked for a week.

“Rick,” she mutmured.

His gaze lifted to hers. Nothing in his face changed at all; he was still hard and lean and fierce. But he leaned in until she saw only him, his mouth coming for hers, touching lips to lips softly. She moaned into his kiss, his tongue teasing the way it used to, light and almost flirty. Playing with her in a different way, with her, like they were in this together.

Such a damn dangerous thought.

She wrapped her arm around the back of his neck, trying to get closer. The wetness was cold, her breasts rubbing against his chest, and she felt his hand moving between them.

He plucked the waistband of her panties with two fingers, teasing back and forth with the ice, back and forth under her belly button, making the elastic wet.

“Rick,” she moaned. “Please. I-”

He stroked his tongue inside her mouth and pushed his fingers down her panties, curling the ice cube up against her clit.

She mewled, jerking to get away from the sensation, hips bucking. He gripped the back of her neck and growled into her mouth, a warning, but she couldn’t stop.

“Let it melt,” he growled. “Melt in your panties, against the heat of your cunt.”

“Fuck,” she moaned. “Fuck, I can’t-”

He popped the band of her panties and dragged his wet fingers back up her body, viciously twisted her nipple. She cried out, arching away from his kiss, and the ice cube against her clit made her shudder, violence to that cold.

A second ice cube came to her open mouth, trailed against her lips, a burn to it as it caught her chapped skin before it began to melt.

His fingers around her throat, the ice at her lips, the melting sliver between her legs that had her writhing-

He traced down her jaw to her throat and rubbed a path along her neck, up her windpipe, down the other side. She swallowed against the sensation, her cunt numb in places and burning in others, but he wouldn’t release her.

Castle leaned in against her, the ice at her throat, and he touched his tongue to her open mouth.

She sucked his tongue inside, hard, pulling at his kiss, needing more than these phantom sensations and the icy burn of wetness between her legs.

Castle held the ice against her throat and groaned into her mouth, his kiss going on and on, forever. She wrapped her arms around him, widening her knees out, propping her heels on the counter to rock and grind against his groin.

“Fuck,” she croaked, ice water squishing through her folds.

Castle dragged the ice from her throat down to her breast, a painful pop at her nipple, and then down inside her panties before she could move.

She shouted, hips bucking, the larger ice cube stuck at her folds. His fingers worked it against her, her body writhing, and then Castle pushed.

She gasped.

The ice cube popped past the resistance of her sex and up inside her cunt, shockingly cold, making her knees clamp at his ribs.

He pushed the ice deeper and suddenly she was climaxing with a ferocity that ripped through her, contracting down hard around the invasion, groans broken and cracked from her swollen throat.

\-----

She sagged, bones liquid, but he had her. His arm banded at her back and braced her so that she slumped into his chest. She was doing a bad job of breathing. She couldn't open her eyes. Water was melting cool and erotic inside her, soaking her panties and the kitchen counter.

She couldn't move. She was limp and blissed out over his shoulder.

"I told you that you'd like that." He was dragging a handful of ice at the back of her neck, around the side of her neck. She shuddered, but he was wrapping it up in a dish towel and holding it against her throat, holding her.

He was cradling her.

"You really liked that," he murmured. "Didn't you?"

"Fuck you," she husked. But what words, no words, there were no words coming out of the tight grip of her windpipe. She tried to clear her throat but it made it worse, and she had a moment of pure and instinctual panic as her bronchial passages seemed to close up.

"I got you," he said in her ear. "Feels bad at first. That's your own fault, you know. You push me right out of my mind, Kate Beckett. I would never have lost it like that if you hadn't dragged my hand up, looking at me like that."

"You saying-" She croaked again, closed her eyes to force her panic clear, to breathe. "Saying I had it coming?"

"Fuck. That sounds fucking awful." His mouth kissed hers hard and suddenly he was gathering her against his body. He wrapped her legs around his waist and hooked her arms at his neck and lifted her off the counter.

Her leg fell, unable to hold itself up, and Castle reached down and wrapped her around him again, slapping her ass with a short command. "Hang on to me, Beckett. We're not fucking through here. I've got six hours. Max." He pinched her ass and stepped away from the counter.

She roused at that, tried again, tightening the sore muscles of her inside thighs around his waist. He carried her swiftly back towards the bedroom with the ice tucked between his chest and her throat. She was swallowing against the feel of those cubes in the towel like a pornographic reminder of what he’d done to her.

She'd never look at ice the same again, never not feel it inside her.

Castle laid her down with infinite and precious care, cradling the back of her head, carefully arranging her limbs, brushing the snaking hair away from her lips. He caressed her cheeks, her neck, her clavicles, his eyes cataloging and inventorying and studying her.

She was fucked; it would be a moment before she could get it back together enough to take control once more. But when she did. Oh fuck, when she could think farther than the swell of her throat and the burn of ice inside her body where he had teased her--tortured her--then she was gonna get him back.

She was going to fucking destroy him. She had six hours.

She lifted her numb fingers to the ice pack, but he slapped her hand away. "Leave it there. It'll get dislodged anyway."

"Dis-lodged," she croaked out. A question.

"When I fuck you, sweetheart." His words were followed by a kiss, soft and sweet, against her lips. And his fingers stripping the panties off her. "Is the ice still cold inside you? I'm going to see for myself."

She opened her mouth to say--anything, something--but he was already spreading her thighs and settling between her legs. She felt the heated length of his body over her, strong, holy fuck, he was so strong, and her stomach flipped at the first touch of his cock.

He went slowly. Pushing inside. He was staring down at her, his eyes a turbulent grey ocean, and she was moaning wordlessly, tonelessly, the sounds trapped in the roadblock of her iced throat. The icepack was heavy around her neck, numbing, a dull pain even, and now his cock was widening her up, making an inexorable invasion inside of her.

He raised her arms above her head and their fingers laced together, his elbows digging into the mattress and his forearms hard against her biceps, his body laid out over her.

"I can feel--feel icy little tendrils around me, a swirling, cold kiss," he whispered. He touched his mouth to hers, tongue teasing. "You're so beautiful, Kate. So beautiful around me, holding me."

And then he began to move.

\-----

He fucked her deep.

She felt it inside, his cock hitting something that pushed up her throat and pulsed behind her eyes so that she had to squeeze them shut. He fucked her in sure strokes, his body holding hers down, her arms straining against him, her legs pressed wide apart.

She couldn’t breathe. Her throat was constricted, her chest tight, her guts turned inside out.

And she fucking loved it.

“Baby,” he whispered.

Her eyes flared open on his withdrawal.

“Hey, there,” he murmured.

She blinked up at him, arms pressed back so that her breasts rubbed against his chest with every breath she managed to choke in.

He leaned down and touched his mouth to hers, a shivering kiss that trailed down her neck and settled at her bruises, pushing aside the ice pack with his nose. His lips were so hot after the ice.

“You’re so erotic, moaning for me.”

Fuck, when she could think straight again, she was going to fucking hand him his balls.

“Make me come,” she groaned. “Just make me fucking come.”

Rick hummed at her throat and let himself sink back inside her--slowly. She was agony at every nerve ending, her thighs trembling, her sex tightening around him. She was so close. She was going to come apart.

He thrust.

She gasped, arching up into him. His mouth covered hers, smudging her lips and taking her breath. He released one of her hands and slid his arm under her back, angled her hips up.

He took her again and she cried out, gripping his back with her free hand. She had to hook a leg around his thigh so she could drive her hips up. He grunted and thrust back, and now it was back and forth, give and take, their perfect, endless rhythm.

Endless.

His tongue inside her mouth and his cock pushing inside her cunt, and his fingers laced through hers so that their skins met, sweaty and melding. His bare stomach kissing hers. Her arm over her head so that her body was stretched out for him, so that his cok went deep.

She moaned.

“You’re so damn hot.” He kissed her again, down her throat, obsessed with her throat. The ice was melting and wet and the ice cubes had tumbled from the towel to rub her skin. His tongue chased after them, rubbed ice into her collarbones and up her windpipe.

“Feels good,” she husked. “So good. Oh God.”

“All I do is think about you,” he growled. “The way you taste. The soft place at your stomach. How you want me all the time.”

“You talk too much,” she moaned. “But your cock is amazing, so I’ll let it sli-ide. Oh, fuck.”

“Then let it slide,” he murmured, his smile so damn infuriating, but she couldn’t even care.

She didn’t care. Just let him keep fucking her.

His lips were wicked at her ear. “You’re all I can think about. You drive me crazy, how you always want it, you always want more. Fuck me. I’m ditching the DI’s tail in Dublin, and I’m thinking about my cock inside you, my fingers inside you, coming again and again. I know it’s crazy, I know I’ve only got--at the most--a few hours with you, but I’d do anything for a few hours. You’re so damn fucking addictive.”

“Shut up, Richard. You’re losing your rhythm.”

He growled and fucked her. She grunted and took it, the force of him penetrating deep. So fucking huge, why was he so fucking huge?

She was going to die.

He fucked her. He fucked her. He was so deep. She couldn’t take it. Her whole body was turned inside out. She’d come too many times now for it to be easy, but oh fuck, the harder it was, the more it shredded her.

He bit her throat and she climaxed without warning, clamping down around his cock, trembling under his body, furious that she’d come first again-

And then Castle groaned against her throat and orgasmed, hot seed inside her, his body dropping hard on top of hers as he rutted.

She gasped, staring up at the ceiling of her bedroom, wrecked and spent and--aroused again.

Aroused. Her nipples ached, tight buds against his chest as they both panted for breath.

Her throat was rough. Ice had melted at her neck and shoulders. She was wet and sticky and her muscles ached, and yet she was desperate for the ride all over again.

“What’d you say?” she murmured, turning her lips to his jaw. “What’d you say about coming again and again?”

“Oh, fuck me,” he moaned.

“Yes. Now it’s my turn.”


End file.
